'This Disaster Would Not Happen Had Nature Not Been Touched'

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Seven people lost their lives in the flood that happened in Araklı district in the Black Sea province of Trabzon. Initial reports said that the flood was caused by a water pipe blast in the hydroelectric power plant in the district.

Cemalettin Küçük, the Board Chair of the Chamber of Metallurgical Engineers at the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), spoke to bianet on the incident.

Saying that he gathered information from a team they sent to the area, Küçük said contrary to reports that a pipe blast wasn't the case, but it was caused by the intervention into nature during the construction of the power plant.

"Such a disaster doesn't happen with a water pipe blast in a hydroelectric power plant. Nature has been touched in the Black Sea [region] for decades and such disasters happen in our valleys a couple of times every year.

"With the effect of rains, catchment water that comes from above mixes the soil, the power plant pipes, and water into each other and causes the flood."

Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Ekrem Pakdemirli said the incident was "totally natural" and the power plant was the "victim" of the flood.

Küçük, on the contrary, said that the flood was not natural and told how it happened:

"Landslides always happens in the Black Sea Region. Yeşilyurt is a village that is 24 or 25 kilometers afar from Araklı. The hydroelectric power plant was constructed four or five kilometers above the village and the soil that is already susceptible to landslides, the rocks, and the trees fell into the valley as landslides happen.

"The rains on the accumulation of soil in the valley caused little reservoirs that contain 30 or 40 tons of water over time. When the heavy rain made these little reservoirs merge into the catchment basins of the hydroelectric power plant, the disaster happened as a result.

"Rain is a natural phenomenon. But if nature is spoiled, its result won't be natural but a disaster for humans. Untouched nature doesn't create such a disaster.

"Those who live in Yeşilyurt village was not that close to the stream bed. But it was needed to foresee such a disaster will come and take measures for that after nature was spoiled. But the constructors of the hydroelectric power plant did this business only aiming for profit."

Küçük said that the of the procedure of environmental effect reports is implemented only "on paper."

"Environmental effect reports are announced to the villagers through public meetings. But here, there is no information on when and how the hydroelectric power plants were constructed and on how many of them are there.

"There is no scientific discussion left, there is just a procedure and its applied on paper. The result is the view we see."

Küçük also said they witnessed many similar incidents in the Black Sea Region, where cyclonic rains are very common especially in June and August. The floods remained unseen because there were no losses of lives, he added.

There are three valleys and "countless" hydroelectric power plants, he noted.

(TP/VK)